All of No Man's Land is Mine
by wouldyouliketoseemymask
Summary: In the years between the events of Arkham Asylum and Arkham Knight, Scarecrow plots his vengeance.
1. Asylum

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to any aspect of the Batman universe. I own nothing save for any original characters that I have created.

 **A/N:** We don't know much about Crane's activities between the events of _Arkham Asylum_ and _Arkham Knight_ , and so I thought it would be fun to write my own ideas of what he was up to. Each chapter will cover its titled game. The story title is a play on the song _All of No Man's Land is Ours_ , recently covered by one of my favorite bands Einstürzende Neubauten.

* * *

 _ **All of No Man's Land is Mine**_

 **ASYLUM**

* * *

Jonathan Crane's memories of his last night in Arkham Asylum were unforgivably cruel in their vividity, forever burned into his psyche like a hidden scar of shame and defeat. He remembered how incredible, how amusingly _light_ a city's worth of fears felt in his needled hands, and the immense satisfaction of knowing that even as the Bat approached him in the darkness of the sewers, his every step a growing threat, both men were fully aware that he would not reach Crane in time to prevent the precarious inevitable. He remembered how for that one fleeting moment he was truly victorious, and as his bandaged fingers relaxed their grip on the toxin-filled pouch Crane could already hear Gotham begin to scream.

He remembered how his brain had barely registered the sound of splashing water before a sudden mass of muscles and scales and teeth erupted from the filth to sink its claws into Crane's flesh and fling him through the air; he remembered the creature's roar echoing throughout the stone walls followed by a blurred glance of an electric blue spark, and Crane's final thought before he was dragged beneath the surface and his greatest enemy's image quickly faded into a watery mirage was one of bitter irony: after years of having his carefully-orchestrated plans foiled by Batman's constant interference, the one time Crane actually _needed_ Gotham's finest hero the Bat had failed to swoop in and save the day.

The observation felt like the punchline of an absurd cosmic joke, as humorless as it was humiliating.

But what Crane remembered most vividly of all was the pain—indescribable, dehumanizing agony that he had never before known even in the depths of his most depraved chemical nightmares.

A lifetime spent dedicated to fear had dulled Crane's sense of horror, and his initial reaction to the sudden attack had not been terror but amazement at both its bizarre randomosity and the plague of his poor luck. But the temporary blessing of numbness gave way to raw panic when Killer Croc sank his teeth into Crane's shoulder and bone and sinew were crushed beneath the force of the monster's jaws; red clouds of blood flowed from his thrashing body to dance through the polluted water, and when Crane opened his mouth to scream it flooded his throat and lungs. Croc continued to bite and tear at his flesh, stripping the Scarecrow of his dignity and his skin with each primal swipe of a claw or gnash of a tooth, and within the span of a few violent seconds everything that Jonathan Crane was comprised of—the first helpless cry on the day of his unwanted birth, childhood nosebleeds blossoming from beneath the fists of schoolyard bullies, endless pages turned in endless books, decades worth of knowledge, stitched burlap pulled over his face for the first time, the look of toxin-induced fright in a victim's eyes, every private moment of sadness and loneliness and doubt and _fear_ , it was always _fear_ —was at once reduced to a single body of wounded, gnawed failure. Only then did the monster abandon him to chase a more prized trophy, and Crane was left to float worthless in a sewer among rats and waste, waiting for a death that was sure to arrive swiftly.

But Crane did not die.

He survived, and would later wonder if perhaps that was a mistake.


	2. City

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to any aspect of the Batman universe. I own nothing save for any original characters that I have created.

* * *

 _ **All of No Man's Land is Mine**_

 **CITY**

* * *

Had he possessed the energy, Crane would have wept with relief when he finally washed onto shore after an eternity in the water, his wiry arms wrapped around a drifting Titan crate in a rescued embrace; instead he used the last fading remnants of his strength to drag his mangled body onto a sandbank, blood pouring from his wounds to pool and clot in the sand, and finally gave himself over into the mercy of unconsciousness.

* * *

A favored underground doctor with a revoked license and breath that reeked of liquor pieced Crane back together inside a dim office, transforming his mutilated flesh into a canvas of stitches and gauze. For hours the doctor worked to repair the damage Croc had inflicted, occasionally pausing to take a swig from the flask tucked inside his stained white coat or to sink a needle into Crane's arm and deliver a merciful dose of morphine through his bloodstream; he had refused anesthesia, paranoid that he would wake to find his wrist handcuffed to the operating table and Batman standing enraged in the grimy doorway.

The Bat had continued to search for him, and Scarecrow knew that he would not stop until he found either Crane's still-breathing body or a corpse floating in the Gotham Bay. Remaining undetected was of the utmost importance—there was much work to be done, and Crane could not, _would not_ allow himself to be captured until he was fully prepared to face Batman again.

The next time he encountered the Bat, it would be on Crane's terms.

The doctor had given him a generous supply (and damn well he should, for what Crane was paying him) of medication to treat the pain, with the enthusiastic promise of more pills should Crane return with more money. But Crane would later choose to discard every single tablet into the garbage—he _wanted_ to feel the pain. He wanted to experience the agony of spasms wracking through his leg with an unforgivable intensity, until he felt as if the limb were rattling inside its brace and grinding against the bolts screwed into his knees. He wanted to experience the cruel ache setting afire to the nerves of his broken exposed teeth, no longer shielded by what little remained of his lips. He wanted to run a gnarled hand over the smooth surface of his skull, to feel the scars beginning to form where his unkempt hair had once been. He savored the pain, treasuring it more than he ever could the chalky taste of an opiate on his tongue, and he found that basking in the horror of the atrocities permanently inflicted onto his body brought him more comfort than any narcotic in the world could ever provide because it was accompanied by an old, cherished friend: hate.

And so it was hatred that led Crane to limp across the Gotham Docks and place a thick stack of cash into the fat hand of a man with greased hair and an unlit cigar pinched between bleached teeth. It was hatred that led Crane to climb inside a small boat that never stopped rocking and swallow his nausea with every wave as he sat in his new dark home, hunched over his papers and maps as he attempted to ignore the sound of gas canisters rolling across the floor and roaches scuttling along the walls. And it was hatred that led Crane to remain quiet and hidden when the outside world erupted into a chaotic haze of gunfire and he first heard the words "Arkham City" being chanted by gleeful voices that meant no good. He began to leave the boat even less after that, and only during the limited safety of nightfall, but the cattle of undesirables being herded into his home did serve an unforeseen and exquisite purpose.

It allowed him to feed on its fears.

* * *

The first was far easier than expected. Gunfire from a nearby turf war—Cobblepot had always been heavy-handed when it came to violence—disguised the clinking of his leg brace as Crane strode across the dock boards as quickly as his limp would permit, right up until the moment when he sank a needle into the neck of a goon in a mask.

There were so many these days. Nobody would miss this one.

Nobody at all.

The man fell to the ground as fast-acting anesthetic coursed through his veins, and he did not begin to stir until long after Crane had (slowly, excruciatingly) dragged him back to the boat and bound him to a chair with duct tape and tightly-knotted rope.

"Hello?" His voice was groggy, weak. In the glow of the insect tank lights Crane could see the tell-tale marred etchings on half of the man's mask, indicating an affiliation to the Two-Face gang.

"Good evening," Crane replied from the shadows. "How are you feeling?"

"Hey, what the hell is this, man? Who are you?"

Crane said nothing. A silent moment passed before the goon licked his lips and spoke again.

"Look," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking, "whatever's going on here, we can work it out. Mr. Dent's been very good to me, and if you let him know that I'm here then he'll do whatever it takes to—"

"I'm afraid I know our mutual friend Mr. Dent a great deal more than you do," Crane remarked calmly, "and I can assure you that he absolutely does not care what happens to you. Not even half the time."

The man looked visibly taken aback by this proclamation, and Crane could see primal emotions forming behind the mask's eyes. Anger. Panic. _Fear._

"You better untie me right now or you're _dead_ , you hear me?! Untie me before I bust out of this myself and kick your ass and drag you to Two-Face, and when he's cutting you into two pieces you'll be wishing you'd never been stupid enough to mess with _me_. You hear me, creep? You listening?!"

A quick burst of spray from an aerosol can ended the goon's tirade, his threats turning to ragged coughs.

"Loud and clear." Crane smiled, the goon's eyes widening in horror behind his mask as he watched Scarecrow's butchered form step out of the shadows and the toxin began its assault on his mind. "You have my full attention."

* * *

Two political prisoners stood by a burning barrel, warming their chilled hands as close to the fire as the heat would allow. When a sudden wail of dread and terror erupted throughout the cold night air, one gasped in shock while his unfazed companion, a man who had been imprisoned within days of Arkham City's opening, did not even bother to look up from the fire.

"Did you hear that?" the frightened man asked, warm breath fogging from his mouth as he spoke.

"Of course I did," the other man replied with a tone as casual as it was maddening. "What of it?"

His fellow prisoner stared at him with his mouth agape, both astounded and disturbed by the man's lack of concern. He took notice of the expression and chuckled darkly.

"Listen, how long you been here? Two, maybe three weeks?"

The timid man looked sadly into the barrel's flames. "Almost a week."

"Huh. Well, give it time and soon enough you'll be too hungry to worry about being scared." He shrugged. "Or you'll be dead. Whichever happens first."

"But—"

The sight of a henchman scuffling towards their direction sent the pair scurrying to a dark corner, retreating within the precarious safety of shadows; neither man wanted to suffer the pain of broken bones, the fear of having their limited rations or coat stolen, or the simple indignity of public humiliation. As the henchman passed by the barrel, the fire's orange hazy glow revealed a costume unique among Arkham City's sea of masked men: a jumpsuit adorned with patches of burlap, brown leather and buckles, and wide strips of silver tape.

Only when they were certain that the henchman was gone did the prisoners rise and return to the barrel, now with a heavy air of apprehension felt by even the more brave of the two.

"That's the second one I've seen dressed like that," the timid man whispered. "Who do you think he works for? Scarecrow?"

"Don't be stupid. Scarecrow died at the asylum, remember? It was all over the news."

"Yeah, but they never did find his body. Hey, do you think maybe he—"

" _Enough_ ," his companion snapped, resentful of the fear now growing in the pit of his stomach. "There's enough boogeymen in this godforsaken hellhole without you making up more. Either shut up or find someplace else to stay warm."

The man fell silent. Years later, long after he'd been rescued from Arkham City and resumed a life of regular clothes and warm beds and a full stomach, he and the rest of Gotham would learn that Crane _had_ been secretly operating within the confines of Arkham and formulating an elaborate, torturous plan to punish the entire city for the actions of one single Bat.

The revelation that he had been right all along brought him no comfort. Indeed, it made him all the more afraid.

* * *

 **YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME**

 **I WILL RETURN BATMAN**

 **FEAR WILL TEAR GOTHAM TO SHREDS**


	3. Origins

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to any aspect of the Batman universe. I own nothing save for any original characters that I have created.

 **Warning:** This chapter touches on some disturbing subject matter. Please do not read if you feel it may upset you or cause mental distress.

* * *

 _ **All of No Man's Land is Mine**_

 **ORIGINS**

* * *

From the moment Dr. Jonathan Crane injected toxin into an arm that was not his own for the very first time and watched a spark of chemical fear ignite in cold, hardened eyes, he knew that nothing would ever again be the same. He had witnessed the birth of a profound revelation, and there was no turning back; never before had he felt so powerful, so overcome by the presence of glory and absolute _purity_ , and he refused to continue a life where it did not exist. It was then that Crane realized that the greatest tragedy of the world was not famine or war, nor illness or death, but that most people would waste their lifetime avoiding encounters with fear and never allow themselves to appreciate its raw beauty for what it truly was: a gift.

He watched, silent and humbled, as the Blackgate prisoner's face contorted into a mask of suffering with the intensity of a thousand terrors, as if each inescapable vision clawing its way to the surface of their toxin-addled brain was more frightening than the one before. Crane was no stranger to the throes of his toxin—together they had spent countless hours wandering the landscape of his mind's most loathsome corners—but to see its effects on another was more rapturous than he had ever dared to hope. His sole disappointment lied in the strip of duct tape plastered over the inmate's mouth, stifling his screams (lest they alert the guards to the true purpose of Crane's "therapy sessions") and leaving him to only imagine how exquisite, how _rewarding_ , the man's anguish would sound unbridled.

At first Crane viewed the experiments as justified, for his selected patients in Blackgate were considered repulsive even among their fellow criminals; each had crafted their own method of inducing fear through unforgivable, barbaric violence, and by his reasoning were therefore most deserving of a syringe full of toxin to bring forth their own private cowardice for Crane to dissect and torment. But in time his need for subjects grew beyond even what the ever-revolving prison doors could provide, and he soon abandoned his former rationality for selection and began to pursue other methods to test his evolving compound, with one key difference—the new participants would not be plucked from a group by Crane, but would instead come to him of their own volition.

By then humanity had become nothing to Crane, and the only difference he cared to notice between the people walking freely through Gotham City and the undesirables rotting away in Blackgate's cells was an orange jumpsuit. There were no more deserving and undeserving in Gotham—only their fears.

* * *

 **LOOKING FOR PARTICIPANT IN A CLINICAL RESEARCH STUDY**

DO YOU FEEL DEEPLY SAD AND DEPRESSED?

DO YOU SUFFER SEVERE MENTAL DISORDER?

 _You may qualify for a confidential research study that involves taking experimental medications for 40 weeks. Eligible participant may be compensated up to $500._

 **PLEASE CALL: 8217-8293-CRANE**

* * *

"Hello? Is this Dr. Crane's office?"

Crane looked up from the files and charts strewn across his desk to see a light-haired boy standing in the doorway, no older than twenty and clad in a Gotham University sweatshirt that hung baggy on his thin frame. The dark circles under his eyes and weary, almost pained expression on his narrow face indicated that he'd been sleeping badly, if he even slept at all. In one hand he clutched a flier.

"Mr. Albone, I presume?" Crane rose from his chair and motioned for the young man to enter the office. "I believe we spoke earlier today, when you called to inquire about the study?"

"Yes, sir." He extended a hand forward to greet Crane with a handshake, only to let it fall awkwardly at his side when Crane did not return the gesture. "You can just call me Clancy."

Crane smiled tightly. "Have a seat, Mr. Albone. Make yourself comfortable."

When Albone was seated in a chair opposite from the desk, his book bag placed on the floor beside his feet with the crumpled flier tucked unceremoniously into its side pouch, Crane turned to face him with a clipboard in hand.

"Before we get started, I need to ask you some questions to ensure that you're a proper candidate. Is that alright with you?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure." The boy's voice was friendly but quiet, perhaps from either exhaustion or anxiety. For the most ideal results, Crane hoped for a combination of both.

"Excellent. You mentioned over the phone that you have been suffering from some difficulties with your sleeping habits—could you describe them, please?"

Albone cleared his throat softly. "Well, uh..."

He paused, as if unsure of whether he should answer.

"I assure you, Mr. Albone, everything that takes place in this room remains confidential between you and I," Crane said in as falsely reassuring of a tone as he could muster. "And believe me, _I_ certainly have no intention of telling anyone."

This earned a small, faltering smile from Albone, and after a few passing seconds of hesitation he began his story.

"About a month ago, I started getting these really intense nightmares. I guess you'd call them 'night terrors'. I'd wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep, so I'd have to drag myself out of bed every morning and down coffee after coffee just to make it to class on time. But then I started falling asleep in class, and..."

Albone cast his eyes to the floor.

"And that's when you lost control entirely," Crane finished.

"Yeah."

"I see." Crane jotted a quick note onto his clipboard. "Are you referring to the incident you alluded to over the phone?"

Albone nodded and took a deep breath. "The worst part is the screaming. I scream in my dreams and when my roommate shook me awake and told me I was about to wake up the whole dorm hall I realized that I scream out loud in my sleep too. The first time he was concerned for me, but after the third night in the row he just started getting sick of being woken up. He thinks I'm on drugs."

"Are you?"

"No, but I _wish_ I was. That way I could stop taking them and this would all end and I could go back to being a halfway-normal person with a good night's sleep."

Albone sighed heavily. Crane noticed that his hands were beginning to shake.

"I'm sorry," Crane said appeasingly. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"It's okay. I'm just tired." Albone sighed again. "Anyway, what I mentioned earlier on the phone—it didn't happen in the dorm. It happened during class. I was trying so hard to stay awake, because I'd already gotten in trouble once for falling asleep and the professor had embarrassed me in front of the entire classroom. But the lecture felt like it was taking forever, and he kept droning on and on, so I thought I'd close my eyes for just a minute and..."

"And you fell asleep."

He nodded.

"And then you screamed."

Albone closed his eyes in shame. "Yes."

"What happened next?"

"When I woke up everyone was staring at me. Some of them looked confused, some of them looked startled, but this one guy...he just _laughed_. Just sat there and laughed at me." Albone's voice began to crack. "Then he took out his phone and took a picture of me sweaty-faced and on the verge of crying, and I heard that he posted it online with some mean caption but I haven't looked. I'm too humiliated to."

With that Albone hung his head down, perhaps so that Crane could not see the tears in his eyes.

"That was last week," he whispered, "and I haven't been back to class since."

Crane thought back to a lifetime ago in Georgia, ripe as a rotting peach with memories that he wished to forget. But no matter how hard he tried, Crane still remembered with terrible clarity the miserable schooldays where he huddled beneath the cool shade of a tree to nurse a bloodied lip split open by his own teeth beneath the fist of a bully, where his empty stomach growled with hunger as his meager lunch was stolen once again and greedily devoured in front of him, where the only friends he had were those who existed on black ink and yellowed paper, where he shut himself away in the corners of the local library to immerse himself in fictional worlds and attempt to find within them the comfort and peace that the world had denied him since birth.

He realized with discomfort that the boy reminded Crane of a part of himself that he hated; the weak, vulnerable facet of his psyche that he did not want to admit existed and had spent years trying to smother and lock away so that it could no longer impair him. But Albone had managed to bring forth a fresh wound within minutes of meeting by reminding Crane of his past—all of his hidden insecurities, his loneliness and his pain—and for that Crane resented him.

"What happens in the nightmares?" Crane asked, his tone betraying nothing of his inner thoughts.

Albone looked up at him.

"I...I don't want to say."

"That's fine. We'll find out soon enough," Crane said calmly, and reached inside his desk for the case containing the toxin. As he approached Albone with a needle full of fear in his hand, Crane noticed the boy's eyes widen in surprise—or was it dread?

Crane hoped for both.

"Are you alright, Mr. Albone?"

"I, uh..." Albone let out a quiet, nervous laugh. "I have this... _thing_ about needles. I guess I'm just a little uneasy, that's all." He forced himself to smile.

"Oh, Mr. Albone," Crane replied darkly as he pressed on the syringe and sent a rush of toxin through the young man's bloodstream, "I don't think you know the meaning of the word."

* * *

"What are you seeing right now, Mr. Albone?"

Albone blinked slowly in disbelief, cocking his head to the side.

"There's no way...it's not possible..." Albone whispered.

"Describe what you are seeing, please."

"I...I _can't_." His confused expression was now beginning to resemble something akin to shock. "I want to stop. I want to stop right now."

"I'm afraid that I can't do that, Mr. Albone,' Crane replied calmly. "We had an agreement."

"I don't want the money anymore. You can keep it for all I care, I just want to—ah!"

Albone let out a sudden shriek and pressed his back against his chair, as if trying to place distance between himself and an unseen figure.

"Get her away from me!" Albone yelled, lifting his feet off the floor in a wild panic and bringing his knees to his chest.

"Get _who_ away from you? What do you see?"

"Why does she look like that?! She's purple, her tongue's all black— _oh God_ , there's foam spilling out of her mouth." Albone began to cry. "Please, don't let her touch me! _Please!_ Don't let her get any closer!"

"Who is she, Albone?" Crane's patience was beginning to thin; if a subject was too hysterical to communicate or properly observe (as had occurred during a handful of disastrous experiments in Blackgate, including an incident where an inmate was so overcome by fear that they had fainted) then the entire session was consider a failure and a waste of limited toxin.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Albone bawled. "You have to believe me, I didn't want that at all."

Crane raised an eyebrow at the boy's phrasing. He had expected a phobia, an aversion, or perhaps a frightening memory from childhood—not a statement that implied responsibility for a bad deed.

"Tell me, Albone," Crane demanded. "Tell me what happened."

The boy was full-on sobbing now, gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that his knuckles blanched white and his fingernails began to bend backwards.

"I looked it up online last month and p-put the dosage they said would work into her drink," Albone babbled, his face flushed red and wet with tears. "H-h-how was I supposed to know what kind of medication she had in her system? I didn't give her too much, I swear to God. You have to believe me! I only wanted for her to just go to sleep, just for a little while, not to—"

Realization dawned on Crane, and he inhaled sharply in disgust.

"She started throwing up and made this, this weird choking noise, a-a-and I was scared of getting into trouble so I ran out and left her there—but I never even touched her! Not once! You can ask any of her friends, they'll tell you that when her mom found her in the morning she was still dressed—OH GOD SHE'S ON ME, SHE'S ON ME, HELP! OH GOD _I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY_ —"

Crane watched as Albone, a monster without an orange jumpsuit, wildly clawed at his own flesh in an attempt to escape from the hands of an invisible Hell he had created for himself, babbling and pleading for mercy, and still Crane felt no sense of justice. And why would he?

There were no more deserving and undeserving in Gotham—only their fears.


	4. Knight

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to any aspect of the Batman universe. I own nothing save for any original characters that I have created.

 **Foreword** **:** We've reached the end of the _Arkham_ series and are approaching the end of this story as well. The next chapter will likely be the last. Thank you sovery much to everyone who read _All of No Man's Land is Mine_ , whether you read a single chapter or the entire series. If you left a review, please know that your kind words encouraged me to continue this story and for that I am immensely grateful.

* * *

 _ **All of No Man's Land is Mine**_

 **KNIGHT**

* * *

Years had passed since Crane was spat from the asylum sewers to begin his crusade for Batman's death, and in that time he had lived a thousand emotions. Degradation and agony had been his companions when he drifted in and out of consciousness in the cold filth of the Gotham River, certain that the polluted water would become his grave. The will to survive had wrapped his weak arms around a Titan crate, and desperation had pulled him onto shore even when Crane felt as if his gnawed, shattered body could carry him no further. The phantom presence of rage had remained faithfully at his side throughout his recovery, thriving like a bloated parasite as it fed on every physical reminder of the injustice inflicted upon Crane: the droplets of blood blossoming in wet crimson trails beneath a scalpel blade, the black thread that weaved through his mangled skin in clumsy stitches, the tight metal bolts and worn leather straps of the brace that held together the jagged, aching bones of his destroyed leg. The shame of his defeat had driven him to seek prosperity within Arkham City in spite of his limited resources, feverishly determined to never again be bested—not by the Bat, not by a fellow rogue, not by _anyone_ —and hate, a wretched friend since childhood, kept his mind focused on his work even as roaches scuttled endlessly at his feet and henchmen wars roared on in the outside world.

And then there was pain. There was _a_ _lways_ pain. Unrelenting, ever-present, consuming pain that did not care about the wrongs of Crane's past or the unpaid debt of vengeance he was owed, for pain knew only how to pluck at his nervous system with sharp, joyless fingers until it grew bored and allowed him a few sparse hours of restless sleep.

But in the end it was not wrath that guided Crane to complete his journey, nor his hatred or his humiliation, or even his pain; they had all served him well as fuel and ammunition, but none were the final catalyst. What ultimately led Crane to destroy Gotham City was a sense of justice—Batman had caused Crane to suffer immeasurably by unleashing the monstrous crocodile upon him, and so Crane would orchestrate Batman's suffering with a beast of his own: fear. He would torture the Bat by sending the denizens of his precious, repulsive city into a wild panic, leading them to flee from their homes in droves like terrorized cattle before blanketing them in an infernal cloud of living hell more loathsome than anything their dull minds had ever before conjured. Some would undoubtedly perish within the Eden of fears, dying a death far more magnificent than any of the fools were deserving of—but Crane would grant them a final moment of beauty, for inflicting their demise onto Batman would harm him more than any bullet or blade possibly could. By putting their lives in the hands of the Bat they had brought their own doom upon themselves, and their last sane thought before the toxin completely took over their minds would be the horrifying realization that the hero they worshiped with the devotion of a zealot would not be coming to save them.

There were others who had joined Crane in his mission, each for reasons of their own. Some sought money, some sought power, and some just craved the violence—but above all, everyone wanted Batman dead. Yet Crane would not allow the killing blow to be delivered until his plan was complete, for without the ruination of his legacy the Bat would become celebrated as a martyr in death instead of being revealed as a disgraced, worthless fraud who failed to save the city and the lives he had sworn to protect.

A man can simply be killed, but Batman was more than a man—Batman was a legend, and a legend must be _destroyed_.

Tomorrow would become known as the Halloween that Gotham fell, a night rife with riotous chaos and mass violence and pure, consuming terror as the city was torn apart at the frenzied hands of its own people. There would be no last-minute escape, no hero to come to the rescue, and as the rest of the nation witnessed the horror from the safety of their televisions and phone screens they would look upon Crane and know that he was responsible, and that it was only a matter of time before they too followed Gotham into oblivion.

But first, a demonstration.

* * *

 **BREAKING NEWS: SUSPECTED CHEMICAL WEAPON ATTACK IN GOTHAM DINER**

EYEWITNESS REPORTS THAT PATRONS WERE "TEARING EACH OTHER TO PIECES"

* * *

A small crowd had gathered around the window of an electronics shop in Gotham Square to watch the news channel on the display televisions, the group gradually swelling in numbers as more passing onlookers caught a glimpse of the grainy footage playing on the screens and joined them in their spectating. All were seemingly mesmerized by the horror that had been captured on the security cameras inside Pauli's Diner; violent events were far from uncommon in Gotham City, but this...this was different. This was _wrong_. The assailants had not been criminals, but average citizens who had gone from eating a casual dinner to clawing apart their fellow diners in a matter of seconds.

" _People who were one minute quietly enjoying their meals suddenly became embroiled in a nightmarish and savage attack,"_ a Gotham News anchor stated over footage of diner patrons tearing at flesh with their teeth and slamming bloodied heads against tables in a rabid, murderous frenzy, ending their assault only after being struck by bullets fired from a frightened officer's gun and crumpling to the ground in a dead heap.

"Ain't that something?" A dark-haired man in a gray jacket shook his head sadly and cast a sideways glance at the woman standing beside him, her olive windbreaker damp from light rain and her eyes transfixed on the pandemonium unfurling on the television screens. "Can't even get a cup of coffee anymore without being attacked by some guy in a mask."

"They're not wearing masks," she replied flatly. "That's what makes it scary."

Before he could respond the sudden, unmistakably-shrill sound of a screeching microphone rang through the night air and the distorted image of a hooded figure appeared on the Orb Theater megascreen. The square began to buzz with confused murmuring, with some drivers even stopping their vehicles to better view the screen.

"Hey," someone called out, "just what the hell is going on?"

They soon had their answer.

* * *

 **GOTHAM, THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING**

 **ABANDON THE CITY**

 **OR I WILL UNLEASH YOUR GREATEST FEARS**

* * *

The wise had heeded his warning. Gotham was barren now, her dead streets littered with abandoned vehicles and bullet casings. Most who remained in the city fell into a war of two opposing sides: those who intended to profit and kill, and those who intended to fight back. The rest were comprised of the apathetic who were unwilling to leave their homes, the downtrodden who stayed because they had nowhere else to go, and those like the Professor and the Deacon—men who were so enraptured and preoccupied by their delusions that they simply did not care about the impending catastrophe that threatened the city.

None knew that they would all soon be reduced to the same frightened beast in Crane's approaching oasis. Everything that formed their identities—badges and uniforms, tattoos and masks, rivalries and partnerships—would be rendered meaningless in the new world, and together they would bask as plebeian equals in the indiscriminate, humbling glory of their fearsome messiah as they fell to their knees and groveled at his feet.

The thousands who had fled Gotham would soon discover that they had merely delayed their entrance into the paradise of fear, for even they would not ultimately be spared from Crane's gaze. A few drops of toxin had driven them from their homes and out of their city, but they had not left behind their fear—it remained entwined irreparably around their psyche, an invisible weight that grew heavier with every quickening beat of the heart or electric surge of adrenaline—and when an inevitable haze of toxin flooded their lungs and swam to their brains they would lament in their final remaining seconds of sanity over how arrogant, how astoundingly _foolish_ it had been to ever believe that they could outrun the destiny Crane had chosen for them.

For them there would be no savior. No hope.

No Batman.

* * *

 **TONIGHT GOTHAM FALLS**

 **A CITY OF FEAR**

 **RISES**


	5. Epilogue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to any aspect of the Batman universe. I own nothing save for any original characters that I have created.

* * *

 _ **All of No Man's Land is Mine**_

 **EPILOGUE**

* * *

Crane can still feel his own needles sinking into his own skin, their betrayal coursing through his nervous system with every frantic beat of his heart. There was no loyalty in fear—he knew that now. He had spent a lifetime in its servitude and his reward had been the bright orange heat that snaked its way around his brain like tight ribbons of napalm, laying waste to all the years of carefully-planned vengeance and chanting his failures with a cruel mouth full of fire. A chorus of beating wings had filled the air as he burned, the bats hissing and clawing and tearing away pieces of his charred mind for the greedy mouth to devour. It had begun to laugh—his tormentors always did—and in that moment Crane was nothing more than the wiry, unloved boy with clots of rotted pumpkin in his hair, nothing more than the chewed husk that bled filth onto the lonely reservoir shore, nothing more than the shattered pile of bones and burlap and sewed-up skin that had once again failed to defeat the Bat.

Nothing, always and again.

 _What's wrong?_ the mouth had asked mockingly. _Scared?_

 _Yes,_ Crane thought with painful shame, _all the time._

At the center of the haze had stood a great beast, its chest aflame and its eyes full of a hate so venomous it burned within their sockets with the same orange heat that blackened Crane's flesh beneath the burlap and withered away what the crocodile had left of his features. When he could _finally_ scream, when he could _finally_ force his scorched limbs to propel him forward and run, run away, run anywhere but here with the beast of flames and spite, Crane felt a fist collide with his face; knuckles embedded into his jaw, the taste of blood copper blossomed on his tongue, and he fell to the ground to meet a past savior—cool, dark unconsciousness.

He's had plenty of time to think about that night in the years that have passed. Plenty of time to reflect. Plenty of time to relive his errors, his missteps.

Plenty of time to plot.

The nurses and psychiatrists see his babbling lips, his glassy eyes, his hands clawing at his scarred skull as he rocks back and forth in his cell, and they think of him as just another lunatic in a city full of lunatics, another attraction in an already-full sideshow, remarkable in only that he had once worked among them. For many the memory of Crane bringing Gotham to its knees is a distant one, either because they had fled the city and were spared the toxin's might or because his ephemeral glory was overshadowed by Bruce Wayne's unveiling and following death. They underestimate him, they find him weak and sickly and pathetic, and—most humiliatingly of all—some even _pity_ him; the poor, crazed disfigured man sitting in a cell, scraping his fingernails across the stone floor and whispering words that mean nothing.

They are all wrong, and they will all live to regret it.

Crane has been watching, waiting, studying their every move for the right moment, for the right _second_ to strike and then disappear into the shadows. Hidden away in the Industrial District, in a locked storage container that he knows for a fact the GCPD hasn't uncovered, is a stash of enough toxin to poison every single person inside of Elliot Memorial Hospital. A major hospital where doctor and patient alike rip toxin wraiths to pieces or run screaming out of tenth-floor windows should prove to be a more than adequate distraction to keep the police department busy while Crane prepares the beginning stages of his new plan. Or perhaps he'll just go straight to the GCPD building instead, pump it full of gas, and see how long it takes before they've managed to unload their firearms into each other. He hasn't decided yet.

But no matter what path he chooses to take, no matter how long he must linger in the underbelly and scheme and yet-again wait, one inevitable truth is for certain: Crane _will_ reign over Gotham once more, this time permanently.

Until then, Crane will never truly rest.

The beast at his side won't let him.

* * *

 **THE END**


End file.
